Australia's biggest life insurer, Bupa, lost nearly 80,000 customers of its hospital cover policies last year, making it by far the biggest loser in the ongoing exodus of customers from private health funds.

New figures from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) show Bupa remained the biggest player by customer numbers in the 2018-19 financial year, with almost 3.6 million customers, just ahead of Medibank's 3.54 million.